This 27th Edition of The Linux Week in Review is short and sweet. I wanted to the keep it light for this holiday edition to allow me the time to plan for some of the ambitious projects coming in 2012. I have greatly enjoyed writing this series, and I greatly appreciate the warm messages that I have received in support of The Linux Week in Review. I am also proud to announce that I will be adding a special monthly segment to the TLWIR series starting in January 2012. This week features four fantastic stories:

Richard Stallman: Saxophone Master!??

Linux Experts Have No Problem Finding a Good Job

Djere.com Starts a Free Software Donation Directory

Wikipedia Is Now Part of the Combined Federal Campaign

Richard Stallman: Saxophone Master!??

This isn’t really a story per se, but as I was perusing the Internet, I found a picture of a master saxophonist who looks eerily like Free Software guru Richard Matthew Stallman. Saxophonist Peter Lindener is roughly the same age as Stallman, and looks enough like Stallman to be mistaken for the GPL architect. Another characteristic that Stallman and Lindener share is an avid strain of political activism. Lindener has come up with an idea to reform and revolutionize our democratic system: an idea that he has presented to several Stanford college professors. At this time, it is not known whether this idea involves free software in any way. Oddly enough, Stallman and Lindener have never been seen together in the same room. Is it possible that our beloved free software leader leads a double life as a Stanford-based master saxophonist by day, and a Boston-based freedom advocate by night?

The image below is provided under the fair use exception of U.S. copyright law. The copyright holder of the image is Mr. Elliot Serbin of the Stanford Daily. (http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/11/the-saxophone-mans-second-calling/)

Saxophone Master and Richard Stallman Lookalike Peter Lindener

Linux Experts Have No Problem Finding a Good Job

The U.S. economy has been showing some signs of recovery, but the picture is still not rosy with unemployment hovering near 9%. However, one segment of the population is having no problem finding work: Linux and free software experts. Katherine Noyes of PC World reports that Linux experts with a knowledge of Android and/or Java programming are particularly in demand. C++ and MySQL skills are also in very high demand. (http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/245572/want_a_linux_job_learn_java_or_android.html) This is great news in tough economic times. It has also resulted in a lot more schools delivering GNU/Linux-based curricula. For example, both my employer, Begin Linux of Trout Creek, Montana, and Training Etc of Columbia, Maryland offer advanced Linux training courses. More and more of these training organizations are springing up due to the growing popularity of GNU/Linux and free software.

Djere.com Starts a Free Software Donation Directory

Djere.com is a one-man show where I spread my love of free software. I have recently started a free software directory where I link to the donation pages of a lot of free software projects. My goal is to eventually have every major free software project in the world listed, but it will be tough doing it by myself. I have had problems with spam on my site before, and this has caused me to disable adding comments to my articles on Djere.com. However, I believe that this is an important enough service to the free software community that I have opened up comments. Comments will require my administrative approval before they show up on the site. Please leave a comment on the article here if you know of free software projects that are not listed: http://djere.com/donate

Wikipedia Is Now Part of the Combined Federal Campaign

I consider Wikipedia to be a free software project. Wikipedia has certainly revolutionized my education by making the world’s information freely available to me. Wikipedia has been just as important to me as GNU/Linux. Also, Wikipedia runs a large farm of GNU/Linux servers, and employs a lot of GNU/Linux and computer programming experts. For all of these reasons, I donate to Wikipedia every year. The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is a wonderful program that allows tax exempt non-profit organizations in the United States to solicit donations from federal employees once a year (usually around the Christmas holiday season). I was happy to learn recently that Wikipedia has been approved to join the Combined Federal Campaign. Wikipedia’s CFC code is 61478. You can find more information and other ways to give to Wikipedia here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en

Conclusions

Free software continues its meteoric rise, providing jobs and services for a large and growing community. Wikipedia’s success has led to the proliferation of free software projects that can thrive on donations. I will put a larger spotlight on several of these free software projects in future editions of TLWIR. I look forward to seeing you next time. Have a wonderful Christmas and holiday season!